This blog is for parents interested in education and the 11 Plus Exam for children in the UK. We provide comment, tips and advice for parents with children studying for the 11 Plus Exam.

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Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Eleven Plus Relevance

How do parents know if the eleven plus questions their
children are working from are relevant?

Do you remember the story of the Mona Lisa? It had been
hanging in the Louvre for many years. In 1911 she was stolen. Three thieves,
dressed as workmen, walked casually into the gallery before it closed. They hid
in a basement room. The next day the Louvre was closed for cleaning. The
workmen wandered around the hall, took the painting off the wall, and walked
out of the gallery carrying it.

They then forged six Mona Lisas and sold them to Americans
for $300 000 each. The gang were discovered and the Mona Lisa was returned. The
painting was placed behind a thick glass panel and surrounded by electronic
alarms.

A question in O. B. Gregory’s Essentials of Verbal
Reasoning, published for the first time in 1963, had a question:

If XAFL means GOES, what does XAALF mean?

If a number of eleven plus authors use the question as a
basis for their own papers – are the questions still relevant? After all, this
aspect of ability was `discovered’ many years before 1963. The 1944 Butler
Education Act advocated the use of a test to decide if a child should go to
grammar school.

A test had to be developed that attempted to differentiate
between the ability of many children. The test also had to be based on the idea
of a normal curve of distribution. The curve suggested that there would be able
and academic children at the top end of the curve.

Can it be possible that the question: `If XAFL means GOES, what does XAALF mean?’
is still relevant? What part of the brain is the question testing? Has the
relevance of the question been tested recently?